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JESUIT MISSIONS 



A. Is^E O IsT Gr 



THE CAYUGAS, 



monvE 



1656 TO 1684 



A3HS 



C The following articles were written for the Au/nirn Daily Advertiser, in 
which paper they recently appeared. ) In giving them this permanent form, it 
has been deemed best not to change their serial character, and they are re- 
printed as originally published, ^'heir value consists mainly in transcripts 
from the delations Des yesuitcs of the earliest written record of events with- 
in the present limits of Cayuga County, and made by the first white men who 
trod its soil. The several translations have been carefully made for the pur- 
pose, and with the desire to place within reach of the general reader these 
treasures of our local history, until now, for the most part, locked up in the 
original French, and in volumes rarely to he found in private hands. In this 
part of the work the writer would acknowledge with pleasure the assistance 
of Mr. Theodore P. Case, on whose more intimate knowledge of the French 
language he has relied for accuracy in the rendering, while alone responsible 
for the English dress in which the translation appears. For that of Charle- 
voix's admirable and touching tribute to the character of Father de Carheil, 
he is indebted to Mr. John H. Osborne, who beside the works of the historian 
of New France, has enriched his collection with other valuable and rare vol- 
umes illustrative of the early history of the country, and which have been of 
service in the preparation of these papers. 

Auburn, July 27, 1876. C. H. 



Je>^mt JV[i>^^ioT|^ Snqoil^ tl\e CliyniJ^^. 



NO. I. 

It is now two hundred and twenty years ago, that tlie Jesuit 
Fathers made their first attempt to establish a mission among 
the Cayugas, one of the five nations then romprising the pow- 
erful Iroquois League. In November of the previous year 
(1655), they had founded a mission under favorable auspices 
at Onondaga, which became the centre of their labors, as it was 
also the recognized capital of the confederacy. A chapel was 
built, schools were opened, and preparations made for the es- 
tablishment of a French colony, and the building of a fort in 
the vicinity of the mission, at the request of the Onondagas, for 
their protection against the Eries. 

The following account of the beginnings of the Cayuga mis- 
sion is taken from '"'' Relatiotis Des Jesuites," translated from the 
original French. It is Chapter XVI of the Relations for 1657, 
and will be followed by other documents from the same source, 
covering the entire history of the mission : 

CONCERNING THE PUBLICATION OF THE FAITH AMONG THE 
CAYUGA IROQUOIS. 

Having adopted, immediately on our arrival in this country, 
the Onondagas as brothers, and the Cayugas and Oneidas as 
children, it became necessary, for the preservation of this alli- 
ance, to visit them in order to make them presents, which we 
shall be obliged to do each year, to render our relationship 
with them serviceable and desirable. This was to us a very 



agreeable necessity, as it opened the way for the proclamation 
of the Gospel in conferring our presents, after the manner in 
which we had happily commenced our labors. 

It was with this design that Fathers Chaumonot and Menard 
left (Onondaga) at the end of the month of August in the year 
1656 for Cayuga, where they arrived after a journey of two days; 
and that Father Chaumonot having made a brief sojourn there, 
proceeded to the country of the Senecas, leaving Father Me- 
nard to the labors of founding the church about to be formed. 
This is what he has sent to us : 

The antipathy toward the faith and our persons, which the 
Hurons had created among the natives of the country, persuad- 
ing them that we brought with us sickness and misfortune to 
the places we visited, caused us to be received quite coolly, 
and rendered our presents, made for the sake of the faith, 
worthless in their esteem. Nevertheless, the principal men, 
who out of regard for their temporal interests, would not break 
with us, and trusting that the attempt on behalf of the Faith 
would not endanger the lives of their slaves, set them at work, 
four days after our arrival, to build for us a chapel, on which 
they employed themselves so diligently, that in two days it was 
in a condition to receive the Christians. After it had been fur- 
nished and adorned with the most beautiful mats, I there ex- 
posed the Image of our Lord, and that of our Lady ; this was 
a spectacle the novelty of which so greatly surprised our barba- 
rians that they came in crowds to consider it, and gaze upon 
the countenance and movement of the two Images. I thus had 
abundant opportunity to explain our mysteries ; and so inquis- 
itive were they about the Images, that each day was but one 
asking and answering of questions from morning till night ; the 
result of which was, that they were so subdued in spirit that in 
a few days, we had many converts, not only of Hurons and 
slaves, but also from the natives of the country. 

Many brought their children to me for Baptism; and aided 
me in teaching them the prayers, by repeating them after me ; 



and in a short time grace wrought such marvelous changes, 
that the little children, who at first made me the constant object 
of their ridicule and sport, now rendered me the offices of good 
angels, conducting me into the cabins, attending me wherever 
I visited, and giving me the names of those I baptized, as well 
as those of their parents ; that which these barbarians are ac- 
customed carefully to conceal from us, believing that we record 
their names that we may send them to France, and there pro- 
cure their death by magic. 

The providence of God gave me three excellent teachers for 
acquiring the language. They are brothers, natives of the 
country and of good natural dispositions. Their kindness in 
inviting me to their houses, and the patience and assiduity with 
which they have instructed me, very soon qualified me to in- 
struct them, and by means of the Images, which greatly excit- 
ed their curiosity, lead them to apprehend our mysteries. 

'Hie first adult person that I judged capable of baptism, was 
an old man eighty years of age, who, having been touched of 
God on hearing me instruct a Christian, desired me, two days 
after, to visit him, being to all appearance nigh unto death. 1 
had no hesitation in according to him baptism, finding in him 
all the dispositions of a soul chosen for heaven, in the way to 
which he has had opportunity to prepare himself. 

The second adult that I baptized, was a cripple, whose face 
was covered with a cancer, which rendered him horrible to the 
sight. This poor afflicted one received me with a joy, equalled 
only by the fervor of desire he had evinced that I should visit 
him ; and applied himself so faithfully to retain the prayers 
and instructions, that I soon conferred upon him baptism in our 
chapel. Perhaps these graces, whichGod has wrought in him, 
are the fruits of the charity that he manifested for Fathers Bre- 
beuf and Lalemant some time before. He told me that he was 
a witness of their death, and having by his valor acquitted him- 
self with credit among his fellow warriors on that same day, in 
which he had slain with his own hand eight Hurons and taken 



G 

five others prisoners, he had pity on these two captive Fathers, 
and had bought them of the Mohawks for two beautiful wam- 
pum belts, with the design of returning them to us in safety ; 
but that soon their captors gave back to him these pledges, re- 
claimed their prisoners, and burned them with all imaginable 
fury.* 

This poor Lazarus, as I have named him in baptism, is much 
esteemed in the canton ; and he is the first support that it pleased 
God to give to this little Church, which he augments contmual- 
ly, in attracting others to the faith, through the zeal of his dis- 
course and his example. 

The enemy of the Gospel, unable to endure its progress, has 
not wanted for calumnies with which to trouble the Christians. 
Our faith is accused of being the murderer of all who profess 
it ; and the death of several Christians at Onondaga having 
given occasion for this delusion of the savages, the speech of a 
certain chief, an enemy of our religion, made at a council, 
served to excite still more their prejudices. So that not only 
many natives of the country, judging it was safer to believe 
what this man of authority among them said, than to put faith 
in the totally opposite experience of our ancient -Hurons, have 
begged me to regard it well for them to omit attendance at 
prayers, until their fear of me should abate ; but also they ac- 
cuse the faith of the French of all the evils, both public and 
private with which tlicy appear to be afflicted. This it is, that 
a certain apostate endeavored to make these barbarians believe, 
citing the Hollanders for proof of what he said, when he assert- 
ed that the children of the Irocjuois died two years after their 
baptism ; and that the Christians either broke a leg, or pierced 
their foot with a thorn, or became emaciated, or vomited up 

*On the i6th of March, 1649, at daybreak, an army of a thousand Iroquois burst upon the 
Huron town of Taenhatentaron, the mission station of St. Ignatius, which after a resohite 
but ineffectual defence, wis involved in a general massacre. These two Fathers, the vft- 
eran lirebeuf and Gabriel Lalemant, who were in the vilKige at the time, and while en^j.iged 
in soothing the wounded and the dying, fell into the hands of the Iroquois, and after under- 
going every species of torture known to savage cruelty, were tomahawked and their charred 
and mangled bodies left among the ashes of the town. See Shea's History of Catholic Mis 
sions : />/>, 188—191. 



the soul with the blood, or were attacked with some other sig- 
nal malady. 

If our reputation is thus calumniated, our life is no longer 
safe. A warrior of my acquaintance, having come to lodge in 
our cabin, has given me no little anxiety. For having entered 
three nights in succession, with a species of possession which 
renders him furious, he has attempted to take my life, and 
would, without doubt, have succeeded in his purpose, if he had 
not been prevented by our host. 

I was threatened with death, after a more haughty fashion, by 
a young man, who, after having heard me instruct a catechu- 
men, very sick, whom I wished to prepare for death, said to me 
that I was a sorcerer of whom it was necessary to rid himself; 
that I caused to live or die such as I pleased ; and that it was 
as easy for me to heal this man, as to lead him to heaven. 
Was not this an agreeable reproach ? 

Nevertheless, these difficulties, raised by the Evil One have 
not {prevented the faith from gaining day by day upon the con- 
fidence of the people; nor that I should be heard everywhere; 
nor our chapel from being filled with catechumens ; and finally 
that I should not baptize daily either children or adults. 

This is what the Father has informed us during the two 
months he has had charge of the mission, having been obliged 
to leave there and return and join his labors with those of the 
two other Fathers at Onondaga, where they have established 
the foundation and the seminary of all the other missions among 
the Iroquois. 

Since then, however, at that same place, the Father having 
returned there accompanied by five or six French and the more 
prominent of the village, who had come here to beg him to re- 
turn, he has been received with all the eclat imaginable. Hav- 
ing found the chapel in the same condition in which he left it, 
he resumed prayers on the day of his arrival ; and so great was 
the zeal manifested by the converts and tlie catechumens, that 
the Father writes that this church is not less promising than 
that of (Onondaga. 



NO. II. 

The first mission among the Cayiigas, an account of which 
was given in the previous article, was of brief duration. It was 
soon broken up together with that of Onondaga, on the discov- 
ery of a conspiracy which extended to the Mohawks and Onei- 
das, involving the destruction of the French colony at Onon- 
daga, and the death of the missionaries. The plot was disclosed 
to the officer in command of the settlement, by a Christian In- 
dian, and in February, 1658, they made their escape from the 
country by stratagem, and after a journey of hardship and peril, 
reached Montreal, with the loss of a single canoe, and three of 
their party drowned in the St. Lawrence.* A ferocious war 
broke out the same year between the French and the Iroquois, 
and raged all along the Canadian Frontier, putting both Mon- 
treal and Quebec in a state of seige. It lasted some two years. 

In the meanwhile the missionaries had a steadfast friend in 
Garacontie, the chief sachem of the Onondagas, who sought to 
effect a peace for the sake of their return. Through his influ- 
ence an embassy headed by the chief of the Cayugas, Saonchio- 
waga, was sent to Montreal to secure this object. Their arrival 
in July, 1660, was the first intimation the French received of 
the termination of hostilities. The speech of Saonchiowaga, 

*The colony was under the command of Dupuys, who, relying implicitly upon the good 
faith of the Indians, had neglected to preserve his canoes. To construct new ones in view 
of the Indians, would advertise them of his intentions and bring their hatchets upon the 
settlement at once He therefore h.ad small bateaux made in the garret of the Jesuit's 
house and kept them concealed when finished. A young Frenchman had teen adopted in- 
to the family of a chief and acquired great influence over the tribe. By their customs, jhi 
adopted son had all the privileges of a son by birth. When Dupuys had a sufficient num- 
ber of bateaux finished, this young man went to his foster father and in a solemn manner 
related that he had dreamed the previous night that he was at a feast, where the guests ate 
and drank everything that was set before them. He then asked the old chief to permit him 
to make such a feast for the tribe. The request was granted and the feast was spread. 
Many P'renchmen were present, and with horns, drums and trumpets, they kept up a con- 
tinual uproar. The French, in the meanwhile, were diligently embarking and loading their 
bateaux, unobserved by the feasting savages. At length the guests, who had been eating 
.and drinking for hours, ceased gormandizing to take some repose. The young Frenchman 
commenced playing upon a guitar, and in a few minutes every red man was in a profound 
slumber, lie then joined his companions and before morning the whole colony were far on 
their way toward Oswego I.ate the next day, the Indians stood wondering at the silence 
that prevailed in the dwellings of the whites, and when at evening, having seen no sign.-, of 
human life through the day they ventured to bre.ak open the fastened dwellings, they were 
greatly astonished at finding every Frenchman gone ; and greater was their perplexity in di- 
vining the means by which they escaped, being entirely ignorant of their having any ves- 
sels. — LossJng^s Field Book 0/ Revoiuiion Vol. i,//. 229-230. (For fuller account, see Rela- 
tion Des yesui/es, 1658-g.) 



■ 9 

on this occasion, is one of great adroitness and eloquence. In 
explaining the several presents he had brought as pledges of 
the desired peace, coming to the fifth, he said : "This is to draw 
the Frenchman to us that he may return to his mat, which we 
still preserve at Ganentiia, where the house is yet standing that 
he had when he dwelt among us. His fire has not been extin- 
guished since his departure, and his fields which we have tilled, 
await but his hand to gather in the harvest ; he will make peace 
flourish again in the midst of us by his stay, as he had banished 
all the evils of war." After further assurances of good will, he 
l)aused, and raising the last belt, exclaimed in a tone of stern 
resolve : "A Black-gown must come with me, otherwise no 
peace, and on his coming depend the lives of twenty French- 
men." 

After some hesitation the proposals were accepted by the au- 
thorities, and Father Le Moyne, who had first visited Onon- 
daga in 1653, and by his repeated visits to the several cantons 
of the Iro(|uois was well known among them, was selected to 
accompany the party; and on the 12th of August, 1660, was 
received at the Mission house by the sachems of Onondaga, 
Cayuga and Seneca, when the acts of the embassy were ratified. 
Father LeMoyne soon visited the scenes of his former labors 
among the Mohawks, and while there barely escaped a murder- 
ous attack upon his life. He also spent a month in company 
with a young surgeon, at Cayuga, then ravaged with an epidemic, 
ministering to the sick and doing other missionary work; and 
soon after returned to Montreal with eighteen Frenchmen, re- 
leased from tiieir captivity, in accordance with the pledges giv- 
en by Saonchiowaga. 

It was not until eight years after this, owing to the recurrence 
of wars both with the French and neighboring tribes, that Gar- 
acontie succeeded in his desire for the re-establishment of the 
missions. At length peace reigned, and confidence being restored, 
missionary labors were resumed in the several cantons. Gara- 
contie went in person to Quebec, to solicit missionaries for On- 



10 

ondaga and Cayuga, and returned with Fathers Milet and de 
Carheil, in October, 1668. 

The following is the account of the labors of Father de Car- 
heil in re-establishing the mission at Cayuga, translated from 
Chapter IV, '''' Relatiotis Des Jesuites" 1668-69 : 

MISSION OF ST. JOSEPH IN CAVUGA. 

This people, making a fourth Iroquois nation, are located 
about one hundred and sixty-five leagues from Quebec and 
twenty from Onondaga, going always between west and south. 
Father Stephen de Carheil arrived at Cayuga on the 6th of 
November, 1668, and there presented to Heaven, as the first 
fruits of his labors, a female slave of the Andastes. They had 
come in company from Onondaga, and this journey which they 
made together was the means of enabling her to proceed on her 
way joyfully towards paradise; for having been instructed and 
baptized during their journey of two days, as soon as she had 
arrived at Cayuga, she was roasted and eaten by these barbari- 
ans on the 6th of November. 

Father Garnier, who accompanied Father de Carheil, on ar- 
riving at the village, made the customary presents to secure the 
building of a chapel and prepare the way for the reception of 
the Christian faith. These were responded to by similar pres- 
ents on their part, in which they promised to embrace the faith 
and erect a chapel. The chapel was completed on the 9th of 
November, two days after his arrival, and dedicated to St. Jo- 
seph by Father de Carheil. 

He writes that on St. Catherine's day, he had the proof that 
this eminent saint was actively engaged in Heaven on behalf of 
himself and these poor savages ; that on this day there came 
quite a number desiring prayers and instruction, so that he 
thinks he may call this the day of the birth of this mission and 
church. "This is also the day," he adds, "that I implored this 
saint to whom I had before been consecrated, that she would 
teach me to speak in the way she had formerly spoken to con- 



11 

vince the idolatrous philosophers. Since this time, the chapel 
has been enlarged and has never lacked for worshipers." 

It so happened, at first, that but few of their warriors were 
able to come for instruction, as the greater part were engaged 
in hunting or fishing. But the rumor of a war party of the 
Andastes in the vicinity, soon gathered them together and gave 
the Father an opportunity to preach the Gospel to a large num- 
ber. 

This wide-spread rei)ort that the enemy, to the number of 
three hundred, were on their way to attack Cayuga, proved 
false ; but it served as an occasion for the Father to show to 
the Iroquois that he loved them, and to raise him in their es- 
teem by his contempt for death, in remaining night after night 
with those who acted as sentinels. Thus were they disabused 
of the idea, that in the general i)anic, he would manifest the same 
alarm which had seized others ; and the warriors themselves, 
the chiefs with the old men, gave him a testimonial of the honor 
in which they held him, in a public feast. 

The Father knew how to make the most of the opportunity, 
as he passed from cabin to cabin, saying to them ; "Know, my 
brothers, that men like us fear not death. Why should they be 
afraid to die .' They believe in God; they honor Him; they 
love Him; they obey Him, and are certain after death of eter- 
nal happiness in heaven. It is you, my brothers, who ought to 
fear death ; for till now, you have neither known nor loved God. 
You have never obeyed Him. He will punish you eternally if 
you should die without believing in Him, without loving Him, 
without keei)ing His commandments and without being bap- 
tized." Then, having been invited by a child into a lodge 
where there were about twenty warriors, he harangued them 
after this manner : " I am delighted, my brothers, to find my- 
self in like danger with you. Be assured that I do not fear death ; 
that I would rather lose my life than to see you die without 
receiving baptism." And he added as the moral of this appre- 
hended combat, that they would behold him fearlessly going 



12 

among the wounded, to baptize such as were rightly disposed 
by a firm belief in our mysteries and a true sorrow for sin. 

These warriors listened with marked pleasure to this discourse, 
and although it grew out of a false alarm, common among the 
savages, yet it exerted an influence as favorable for the faith, as 
if the enemy had really been at the gates. Thus a wise mis- 
sionary neglects no opportunity, and intelligently improves the 
time to gain, for eternity, precious souls which cost the blood 
of the Son of (iod. 

This church begins already to grow. It numbers among its 
converts not only women and children, but also warriors, two 
of whom are among the more noted — one because he bears the 
name of the bourj^ of Cayuga, which he maintains with honor, 
and the other in consequence of his riches and valor. Prayer 
is not despised at Cayuga as in other places. If some are op- 
posed to it, they are the very few ; nevertheless, we are not in 
haste to give baptism to this people. We wish rather to prove 
their constancy, for fear of making apostates instead of Chris- 
tians. 

The Father employed in the beginning of his teachings ex- 
clusively the Huron language, readily understood by the Iro- 
quois when it is well spoken. He has since prepared a formu- 
la of baptism in the Cayuga dialect, and in composing it has 
used only the simple roots of the language; and is assured 
from his familiarity with the Iroquois tongue, acquired in his 
travels, and from his past experience, that if in the use of the 
roots and of various discourses, he can gather a sufficient num- 
ber of words to express different actions, he will have mastered 
the language. 

Besides the town of Cayuga which is the seat of the mission, 
there are two others under his charge — one four leagues from 
there and the other nearly six leagues. The last two are situ- 
ated upon a river, which coming from the region of the Andas- 
togue, descends, at four leagues distant from Onondaga, on its 
way to empty into Lake Ontario. The great quantity of rushes 



13 

on the borders of this river (Seneca) has given the name of 
Thiohero to the village nearest to Cayuga. The people who com- 
pose the body of these three large villages are partly Cayugas, 
and partly Hurons and Andastes — the two latter being captives 
of war. It is there that the Father exercises his zeal and asks 
companions in his apostolic labors. 

The remainder of this Relation is occupied with some of the 
difficulties with which the Missionary Father had to contend, 
'and witli his methods of overcoming the superstitions of the 
people. It will be included in the next number of this series. 

NO. III. 

Our last article broke off in the midst of the Relation con- 
taining a minute account of the establishment of the Mission 
of St. Joseph at Cayuga by Father de Carheil, in November, 
1668, eight years after the first attemjjt by Menard at the same 
place, as narrated in a previous number. Its two dependent 
stations, it will be remembered, were at the villages of Thiohero 
and Onnantare, the one four leagues and the other six from the 
capital of the canton, and both on the Seneca River, the water 
route between Cayuga and Onondaga the centre of the several 
missions among the Irotpiois. The Cayugas had villages south 
of their capital, but as they were not within the missionary field 
of the Jesuit Fathers, no mention is made of them in the Re- 
lations. The reader is referred to the elaborate and exceedingly 
valuable historical paper by Gen. John S. Clark, in the Auburn 
Daily Advertiser of the 23d inst., for the location of the Cayuga 
Castle on which so much of doubt has rested, and now for the 
first time determined by careful investigation from reliable 
sources. The proofs there submitted amount to a demonstra- 
tion that the site of the capital of the Cayugas, at least two 
hundred and twenty years ago, when first visited by the Jesuit 
missionaries, was on the east bank of the lake, a mile and a 
half north of the present village of Union Springs, and remain- 



14 

ed such as Ujiig as the nation retained a foothold in it:; nncieiu 
domain. 

The translation of Chapter IV '' Relations Des Jesuite^ " 1668-9, 
on the mission of St. Joseph at Cayuga, a portion of which was 
given in the last article of this series, is here resumed and con- 
cluded. Still referring to the labors of Father de Carheil dur- 
ing the first year of the mission, it proceeds as follows : 

While he takes occasion to praise the docility of the Cayu- 
gas, he is nevertheless not without his trials. His host, (Saon- 
chiowaga) who is the chief of the nation and who had taken him 
under his protection, has for some time past ill-treated him ; 
for, desiring as the missionary of his people a certain other 
Father, whom he had brought with him to his home and 
whom it was his indisputable right to retain, he had allowed 
Father de Carheil, against his own wishes, to be given to Cay- 
uga by Garacontie the famous chief. He says in a haughty 
way that he does not belong to them, but to Onondaga, or per- 
haps to Oneida, where he insists he ought to go. On the other 
hand Garacontie would have preferred Father de Carheil, as 
having been placed in his hands at Quebec, for Onondaga 
where he is chief. But the necessity of affairs at present has 
compelled the arrangement as it is. This conflict of riglits, 
however, and this emulation as to who will have these mission- 
aries is sufficient ground for great hopes, and is proof that to 
establish the faith, all that is recjuired is the necessary number 
of evangelical laborers. 

The famous Garacontie, the most renowned of all the Iro- 
quois chiefs, and the most friendly of all to the French, earnest- 
ly desires baptism. He no longer accepts a dream as a guide 
to human conduct ; and promises that hereafter he will no 
more grant the things that are dreamed, without the explic- 
it understanding that it is not because it is a dream that 
he accedes to the request. Furthermore he has given his word 
that he will no longer have more than one wife. But inasmuch 
as it is necessary in a chief of his reputation, that all these mat- 



15 

ters should undergo a strict examination, we still defer baptism. 

He has made the host of Father de Carheil a present of a 
wampum belt, to affirm peace and to establish our Father firm- 
ly in that country. Moreover everybody among the Iroquois 
continues to appreciate the blessings of peace, after seeing the 
victories of the French arms among their neighbors. Neverthe- 
less nothing is so assured among these barbarians, that it is not 
necessary always to be on one's guard. 

Father de Carheil, perceiving that it had a good effect, by 
way of ridicule, with those savages who choose something cre- 
ated and vile as the master of their lives, to frame a prayer in 
accordance with their notions, has, in certain instances, resort- 
ed to this method : 

"We must pray," said he "to the master of our life ; and since 
this beaver is the master of thy life, let us offer him a prayer : 
Thou O Beaver^ who canst not speak, thou art the master of the 
life of nie, 7vho can speak ! Thou who hast no soul, thou art the 
master of tny life 7vho have a s^ul / " One such prayer brought 
them to serious reflection, and revealed to them, that until then, 
they had not had the wit to see, that in reality they did not 
recognize these creatures as the masters of their lives. Thus he 
introduces, little by little, the knowledge of the true God, and 
teaches them his commandments, which they find to be most 
reasonable. 

But alas ! these fair beginnings are unhappily reversed. All 
the powers of hell are arrayed in opposition. Superstition has 
taken a new lease of life ; and the Father has discovered that 
in a heathen and barbarous country a missionary is compelled 
to carry his life in his hand. The Father had gone to Thio- 
hero, and there been invited to a feast, at which everything was 
to be eaten, for the healing of a sick per.son, whom he went to 
visit with the design of bai)tizingher, after imparting the neces- 
sary instruction. Observing that he did not eat all this they 
had prepared for him, they insisted that it was essential that he 
should eat it all in order to heal the sick one. " I do not see* 



16 

my brothers," he replied, "that I can heal her in making 
myself sick by over eating, and by a remedy which the Master 
of our lives forbids ; since it would make two persons sick in- 
stead of one — the first one remaining sick and he who over eats 
becoming so." All were taken by surprise with this reply. The 
sick ])erson, above all, approved of what had been said, declar- 
ing that since this was not the proper course, she was resolved 
to have nothing more to do with superstitious remedies of this 
sort, nor with their dances as well, which only served to split 
a sick person's head.* Since the Father believed that the dis- 
ease had left her, and after her baptism, she was taken from 
Thiohero to Cayuga where she made confession of sins com- 
mitted since she had received the grace of baptism. At length 
she died, filled with the consolation of knowing that after death 
she would be eternally happy. Her death, however, joined with 
the wide spread impression that baptism caused the death of in- 
dividuals, confirmed the delusion with which the Evil One has 
blinded these people to prevent their salvation. 

Since this occurrence, the Father writes us, that he has often 
been repulsed and even driven from the cabins whither he has 
gone to visit the sick. But to understand fully the situation in 
which he soon found himself, and the danger of losing one's 
life, to which the missionary in this heathen country is contin- 
ually exposed, it is necessary to give, in his own words, the evil 
treatment he has received, more particularly on one or two oc- 
casions. 

" I had entered a cabin," he says, "to instruct and baptize a 
young woman, the daughter of a Huron captive ; and though the 
time for liaptism was pressing she would not listen to me any 
more readily than at the commencement 'of her sickness, when her 

♦Charlevoix gives an extended account of the superstitious customs here alluded to. 
The instance as I old him by a missionary Father who witnessed the scene, was that of a 
Huron woman afflicted with a rheumatic distemper, who took it into her head that she 
should be cured by means of a feast, the ceremonies of which were under her own direction. 
The various performances lasted four days, attended with cries or rather bowlings .and all 
sorts of extravagant actions. His informant stated that she was not cured, but claimed to 
be better than before ; nevertheless, he added, a strong and healthy person would have 
been killed by the ceremony. — See journey in North Atnerica, Vol. II. p/>. 202 — 206. 



17 

father answered saying, "Thou speakest as formerly spoke Fa- 
ther Brebeuf in our country. Thou teachest that which he 
taught ; and as he caused men to die by pouring water on their 
heads, you will cause us to die in the same manner." 1 well 
knew from that moment that there was nothing to hope 
for. Immediately after this, I observed one to enter who is a 
medicine man of our cabin ; besides he is much attached to me, 
and is in the habit of praying to God and even knows the pray- 
ers by heart. He remained for some time without disclosing 
his purpose, but seeing that I did not retire, he commenced, in 
my presence, first to apply some remedies in which I saw no 
harm ; and then refusing my aid in the application he was 
about to make of certain other remedies, he insisted that I 
should leave the cabin. It caused me great sorrow to make up 
my mind to leave, and 1 could not do it, as I looked upon this 
poor creature dying, without weeping, with all the compassion of 
which my eyes were capable. As I saw the people that filled 
the cabin astonished at my tears, and also met the look of the 
sick person who at the first had turned her eyes from me, I spoke 
to them after this manner : "Why do you wonder, my brothers, to 
see me weep thus t I love the salvation of this soul, and I see 
her about to fall into eternal fire, because she is not willing to 
hear my words. I bewail her danger which you cannot know as 
1 do." After this I left and sought a neighboring field to pour 
out my complaint to God, still beseeching the salvation of this 
person. But there was no more time ; for a few moments after 
they had driven me out and in my person the mercy of God, 
this unhappy soul was taken from the body by divine justice 
and banished eternally from heaven. 

I felt, through the evening, my heart filled with the bitterness 
of grief, which took away all disposition to sleep, ever keeping 
before my eyes the loss of this soul that I loved and desired to 
save, but which no"w was lost. I then had a much clearer con- 
ception than ever before of the singular anguish of the heart of 
Jesus, who loved all men and desired to save them all, but who 



18 

nevertheless knew the prodigious multitude of men that would 
damn themselves in the course of the ages. His sorrow was in 
proportion to the greatness of his love. That, which at the loss 
of this one soul, so beat down my heart, was out of love which 
did not approach the love of Jesus — only a feeble spark of it. 
O God, whai was the condition of the Saviour's heart, conscious 
of this universal sorrow over the fate of all the damned ! O how 
small is the grief which men feel for temporal losses in compar- 
ison with that which one feels for the loss of souls, when he re- 
alizes their infinite worth ! Then the words of St. Paul, which 
describe the sufferings he recounts from his experience, came in- • 
to my mind ; and it seemed to me that those which expressed 
his deepest anguish were, Sollicitudo Ecclesiarum, the care of the 
churches. 

Whilst engaged in these thoughts I was astonished at the ap- 
pearance ot my host, who approached me with a frightened 
countenance and whispered in my ear, that I must not i^o abroad 
on the morrow, nor even for three days, from the side of the 
town in which is the cabin of the woman who had 'just died. 
My first thought was that they had formed the design to break 
my head. Then all the bitterness of my heart was dissipated 
and changed into extreme joy, at seeing niyself in danger of 
death for the salvation of souls. I urged him to give me the 
reason why I should not go from that place; and though he did 
not seem willing that I should think they intended to kill me, 
he nevertheless said enough to make me believe it. I did what 
jirudence demanded, and replied that I would restrain myself 
from going, during these three days, in my work of instruction 
to the other side of tlie town. 

In the meanwhile the old men were almost continually in 
council to restrain, by presents, these furious persons who had 
resolved my death, the report of which reaching Onondaga cre- 
ated much excitement among all our Fathers and in the neigh- 
boring cantons, even causing them to send by express to know 
the truth of the matter. The affair has had no further result. 



19 

All is now appeased, and Father de Carheil continues, without 
fear, his ordinary labors. 

This first affront that he received was only a trial of his cour- 
age to prepare him for a similar one given by a young warrior, 
who chased him from his cabin because the Father would not 
allow him to say, that in roasting an ear of Indian corn in the 
ashes he was roasting the master of his life. These are the only 
instances of ill treatment that he has received in the town of 
Cayuga, composed of more than two thousand souls, and in 
which they count more than three hundred warriors. 

They do not associate death with prayer, as with ba])tism. 
Many warriors and numbers of women come to pray to God. 
The children even know the prayers by heart. The knowledge 
of God's commandments has become common in their families ; 
and so eager are they for instruction, that they ask to pray to 
God in the open streets. 

Drunkenness, which has penetrated even to the Cayugas, has 
made havoc among them, and hindered greatly the progress of 
the gosi)el. The Father ^writes us from there, that it is very 
common for them to drink for the mere sake of intoxication. 
They avow this loudly beforehand ; and one and another is 
heard to say, " / am going to lose my head ; I am going to drink 
the water which takes away my wits." 

The number of persons that have been baptized is twenty- 
eight, of whom one-half have already died, with such prepara- 
tion as leads us to believe that they have gone to heaven. 

NO.MV. 

In the present number the history of the Mission of St. Jo- 
seph at Cayuga, as given in Chapter VIII of the Relations for 
1669-70, is resumed. As this was the scene of the labors of 
Father de Carheil for a period of sixteen years (1668-S4), abrief 
sketch of this accomplished and intrepid missionary will be of 
interest in this connection. 



30 

He came from France to Quebec in 1656, and was immedi- 
. ately sent on a mission to the Hurons, who gave him the name 
of Aondechete. In 1667 he accompanied Garacontie, chief of 
Onondaga, from Quebec, and the following year was sent to 
Cayuga. He stood in the very front rank of the Jesuit Fathers 
of his time, and was distinguished alike for his intellectual at- 
tainments and saintly devotion. As a philologist he was re- 
markable. He became master of the Huron and Iroquois lan- 
guages and composed valuable works in and concerning both, 
some of which are still extant. He died at Quebec in 1726, at 
an advanced age. 

Charlevoix, the eminent historian of New France, pays this 
touching tribute to his character : 

"I left this missionary at Quebec in 1721, in the prime of his 
vigor and apostolic zeal ; yet how clearly had his life illustrated 
the truth, that men the most holy and most estimable for their 
personal qualities are but instruments in the hands of God, with 
whom He can as easily dispense as with His most unprofitable 
servants. He had sacrificed noble talents through which he 
might have attained high honors in his profession, and looking 
forward only to the martyr fate of many of his brethren, who 
had bedewed Canada with their blood, he had, against the wish- 
es and larger designs of his Su])eriors, obtained this mission, 
whose obscurity thus placed him far without the circle of am- 
bitious strife, and could present to him naught but the hardships 
of the Cross. Here he had labored persistently for more than 
sixty years, and could speak the language of the Hurons and 
the Iroquois with as much facility and elegance as his native 
tongue. The French and the Indians alike regarded him as a 
saint and a genius of the highest order. Yet with all these ac- 
complishments, his conversions were very few. He humiliated 
himself before God, and this mortification of pride served more 
and more to sanctify his life. He often declared to me, that he 
adored these manifest designs of Providence toward him, per- 
suaded as he was, that the honors and success, he might have 



31 

attained upon a more brilliant arena, would have resulted in 
the loss of his soul; and that this thought was his unfailing con- 
solation amid the sterile results of his long and toilsome apos- 
tolate. 

" I have deemed it my duty to record this bright example, 
that those now entering upon the calling of an evangelist may 
understand that no years and no toils can be lost, if through 
them all they attain saintliness of character ; that the conver- 
sion of souls is alone the work of grace; that no natural tal- 
ent, nor even the sublimest virtues, can have any power to melt 
hard hearts, except as God himself may give them efficiency ; 
and that amid all their fruitless toils, they should ever remem- 
ber, that those ministering angels who draw from the very bo- 
som of Divinity the heavenly fire, a single spark of which would 
suffice to draw the whole world to the embrace of the Divine 
Love, and to whom the gaurdianship of nations, as of individu- 
als, is committed — even those holy angels often are left to mourn 
over the blindness of unbelievers and the obduracy of their sin- 
ful hearts."* 

The following is a translation from a letter of Father de Car- 
heil, written from (Cayuga, under date of June, 1670, jjrefaced 
with the statement that the canton has three principal boiirgs^ 
Cayuga, which bears the name of St. Joseph, Thiohero, also 
called St. Stephen, and Onontare or St. Rene. 

1 have baptized, since last autumn, twenty-five children and 
twelve adults, a good portion of whom Heaven has claimed, and 
among them nine children, whose salvation is thus secured. 
The loving providence of God has appeared to me so manifest 
in reference to some for whom I had almost no hope, that I have 
been taught by experience, a missionary ought never to dispair 
of the conversion of any soul, whatever resistance it may offer 
to divine grace. 

I had, as it appeared to me, thrown away my time and labor 
in endeavoring to gain to God a man and woman already very 

*HUtoire De La NouvelU France, Paris, \t^^^ Tome Premier ^fi. 403—404. 



22 

old, and who at best could not live long. The things of heaven 
made no impression upon their hardened hearts. They regard- 
ed faith and baptism with horror, as serving only to hasten their 
death. For it is the received opinion of the larger part of this 
people, founded as they say on their own observation, that for 
the tliirty years and more, in which our fathers have labored for 
the conversion of the Indians of Canada, not only the families, 
but likewise whole nations, which have embraced the faith have 
become desolated or extinct, almost as soon as they have be- 
come Christians, and that the greater part of those on whom is 
conferred holy baptism die soon after receiving it. These 
wretched ])eople seem to be so possessed, on this subject, with 
the artifices of the Evil One that they do not consider that, for 
the most part, the persons we baptize are already in the extrem- 
ity of their disease and nigh to death, and thus that, baptism can- 
not be the cause of their death any more than of their sickness. 
This popular error had so alarmed these two poor savages that 
they would not listen to the idea of being baptized, nor permit 
me even to visit their friends when sick. Nevertheless, having 
seen each other stricken down with a mortal malady, they 
sought our instructions and demanded baptism with such ardor 
of desire that it was not possible to refuse them. Thus God 
knows well how to interpose in favor of His elect and the most 
suitable time for the infallible operation of His grace. 

The person of all this neighborhood, who had given me most 
solicitude with respect to her ba])tism, and finally the most con- 
solation, is a woman of the Senecas, who had been sick for nine 
or ten months. The extraordinary number of persons she had 
seen die after the arrival of Father Fremin in her canton, men, 
women and children ; and the noise made everywhere about 
him as the sole author of this general desolation, and by his 
sorceries and magic and poisons causing death wherever he 
went, had given this woman such a horror of our person and 
remedies, our instructions and of baptism, that I could not gain 
access to her, nor obtain an opportunity to speak to her of her 



23 

salvation. She had even communieated this aversion to all in 
the same cabin, saying that they were dead if they |)ermitted 
me to come near them. She had alarmed them to such a de- 
gree, that as soon as I entered the cabin they all remained in 
profound silence, regarding me with a frightened look, and in 
their unwillingness to hear me, making no response, except that 
I should leave forthwith. In exchanging her residence subse- 
quently, she fortunately went to live with persons who were 
friendly to me; still she preserved in her heart the old aversion 
toward me as one who carried about with him a deadly poison, 
with the power to communicate it by word or look. But the 
more this poor woman held me in repugnance, the more our 
Lord enabled me to exercise charity toward her, and to hope 
for her salvation, even against hope; and though I saw no way 
in which this could be brought about, night and day I thought 
of her, commending her to God, and her guardian angel, and 
to the one who has care of me, and to those who watch for the 
salvation of the people near to her. The night of her death 1 
felt strangely impressed to offer mass solely for her; and in this 
I solemnly vowed to our Lord that there was nothing in this 
world that I was not willing to sacrifice to Him, provided he 
would accord to me this soul for whose salvation He had given 
a thousand fold more than I could offer Him, since He liad 
bought it with His own blood, and by His life. After mass I 
went to visit her five or six times ; but the Evil One still re- 
tained his hold upon her blinded mind. She would only re- 
gard me with a fierce and angry look and drive me from her 
presence. One time her resentment rose to such a pitch, that 
weak as she was, she took one of her shoes and hurled it at 
me, and I left the cabin. But God, who would save this soul, 
pressed me to re-enter immediately ; and prompted me to adopt 
this method of gaining her attention. I addressed the people 
about her, saying to them the things which I would teach the 
sick person herself, as if intended for them. In this way she 
was led to apprehend very clearly the danger of eternal misery. 



24 

which hung over her, and was touched with ,the thought of in- 
finite happiness in paradise, now brought so near for her ac- 
ceptance. In availing myself of this mode of address, I spoke 
before her to those persons of all these things, to which I added 
some considerations on the mercy of Jesus Christ, who became 
man for our salvation, giving her to understand that He would 
bestow upon her His everlasting love, if she would only have 
recourse to Him in simple trust. I passed the day without any 
satisfactory result. Finally I returned that evening as for the 
last time. It proved however the first in which I gained her confi- 
dence. This time I only spake to her with my eyes, regarding 
her with a gentle kindness, and a sympathy sensibly touched by 
heraftliction, and endeavoring to render some little attentions to 
alleviate her condition. I perceived that she began to relent 
and show a disposition to tolerate me. But God served him- 
self of a brave woman, who was instrumental in finally gaining 
this soul to Him. "It is time," she said "that thou hearest this 
which the Father would teach, to the end that thou mayest be 
happy through all eternity." "I am content," replied the sick 
person, "that he should instruct me. I will hear him gladly." 
She now listened with remarkable attention and docility. She 
received with faith all my instructions, and at my request that 
she would repeat after me the prayers, said : "Thou seest well, 
my brother that I can scarcely speak. My disease is heavy up- 
on my chest and suffocates my voice, but I pray you believe that 
my heart says all that thou sayest, and that my tongue cannot 
say. Now baptize me without delay ; I wish to die a Christian, 
that Jesus may have pity on me." I baptized her on the mo- 
ment, and the same night God called her to heaven. Oh ! how 
well we are rewarded for all our anxieties, painful as they may 
be, by one such marvelous conversion ; and how happy is a 
missionary in awaiting from God that which to his feebleness 
appears impossible. He realizes the truth of the words of the 
evangelist,' that God can cause to be born of these very stones chil- 
dren unto Abraham — that is to say, choose his elect from these 



25 

hearts which to us appear so hard and impenetrable to His 
grace. 

I declare in all sincerity that it is to me a great consolation 
to see myself surrounded by so many sepulchres of saints in a 
place, where, on my arrival, my eyes rested only on the graves 
of the heathen ; and as it was this spectacle of the dead which 
struck me so painfully on my first coming here, so it is now, 
the thought that gives me the greatest joy. 

The first winter after I came to this village, God favored me 
with the privilege of giving baptism to two good women, one of 
whom had called me expressly to baptize her, on the Day of 
Purification. They both survived their baptism an entire year, 
and as they had been faithful to their promises, and frequented 
the prayers and sacraments with devotion, I doubt not they 
have increased the number of the elect in Heaven. 

A Christian man and Christian woman of our ancient church 
of the Hurons have also given me the greatest consolation, as 
the witness of the purity of their faith, and of their lives, until 
death, for which they had attained a saintly preparation in the 
use of the sacraments of the church. 

— The remainder of this letter of Father de Carheil, which 
will be given in our next article, is more particularly occupied 
with his methods of instruction, evincing tact and ingenuity 
not only, but a sincerity and devotion which no one can fail to 
respect and admire. 

NO. V. 

The remainder of the letter of Father de Carheil, the transla- 
tion of which was commenced in the last number, is here given. 
As it is chiefly occupied with the methods by which the mis- 
sionary sought to combat the superstitions of the people in the 
matter of dreams, it will serve to illustrate the whole subject by 
introducing here an extract from chapter IX of the Relations 
for 1656, which among other curious details of the customs and 
life of these people, contains the following instances, showing 



26 

the estimate in which dreams were held as authoritative revela- 
tions of the divine will. They are narrated by Father Joseph 
Chaumonot who, it will be remembered, accompanied Menard 
to Cayuga at the first establishment of the mission at that place 
in 1656. 

It is not long since that a man of the bourg o{ Cayuaga dream- 
ed one night that he saw ten men plunge into a frozen river, 
through a hole in the ice, and all come out at a similar opening, 
a little way beyond. The first thing he did, on awakening from 
his sleep, was to make a great feast, to which he invited ten of 
his friends. They all came. It was a joyous occasion. They 
sang; they danced, and went through all the ceremonies of a 
regular banquet. 'This is all well enough,' at length said the 
host ; ' you give me great pleasure, my brothers, that you enjoy 
my feast. Rut this is not all. You must prove to me that you 
love me.' Thereupon he recounted his dream, which did not 
appear to surprise them ; for immediately the whole ten offered 
themselves for its prompt execution. One goes to the river and 
cuts in the ice two holes, fifteen paces from each other ; and 
the divers strip themselves. The first leads the way, and plung- 
ing into one of the holes, he fortunately comes out at the other. 
The second does the same ; and so all of them until the tenth, 
who pays his life for the others, as he misses the way out and 
miserably perishes under the ice. 

In the same bourg of Cayuga there happened an occurrence 
which produced a great excitement throughout the canton. A 
man dreaming that he had made a cannibal feast, invites all the 
chiefs of the nation to assemble in council, as he has something 
of great importance to communicate. Being assembled, he tells 
them that it has fallen to him to have a dream, which if he did 
not execute would cost the ruin of the nation, and with its over- 
throw a general destruction over the whole earth. He goes on 
at some length with the matter; and then gives an opportu- 
nity for any one to interpret his dream. No person ventures to 
divine its meaning; until finally, one hardly believing that it 



27 

can be so, says : " Thou desirest to make a feast of a man. Take 
my brother. Behold I place him betiveen thy hands ! Cut him in 
pieces ! Put him into the kettle!'' Terror seized all present, ex- 
cept the dreamer himself, who replied that his dream demand- 
ed a woman ! Whereupon, such was their superstition, they 
took a young maiden and adorned her person with all the riches 
of the country, with bracelets, and collars and coronets; indeed 
with every variety of ornament in use among women, even as 
they are wont to decorate their sacrificial victims; and thus 
this poor innocent, in ignorance of the meaning of this profuse 
adornment, was led to the place designated for the sacrifice. 
All the people came together to witness the strange spectacle, 
and the guests took their places. The victim was brought into 
the centre of the circle and placed between the hands of the 
sacrificer, the one on whose account this offering was to be 
made. He receives her, and regarding intently the innocent 
one, has compassion upon her ; and as all are looking for him 
to deal the death stroke, he cries out : " / am content ; my 
drea?n is satisfied f Is it not, adds the missionary Father, a 
great charity to open the eyes of a people imposed upon by 
such absurd errors.? 

In resuming the translation of Father de Carheil's letter, it 
is only necessary to remind the reader that it was written from 
Cayuga under date of June, 1670. 

In arranging for my first catechetical exercise, and apprehen- 
sive that none would, of their own accord, respond in public, I 
drilled before hand some of the children more particularly, as 
an example to the others of the manner I would have them an- 
swer the ([uestions. But I was taken by surprise when I saw 
three or four women, among the more aged, rise on their fee^ 
to anticipate the children in their responses. After the first 
day we counted eighty-eight persons present, besides a number 
who listened at the door. One day, after explaining the crea- 
tion of the world and the number of years we count since the 
beginning to our time, and in order that they might the more 



38 

readily comprehend the matter, I had marked some small stones, 
to prevent confusion and aid them to repeat the computation, 
when a warrior rose all at once m his place and faithfully re- 
hearsed all that I had said ; but he did not fail to demand, by 
way of reward, the same prize that I gave to the children. 

1 have earnestly combatted their superstitions, particularly 
the divine authority they attribute to dreams, which may be 
said to be the foundation of all their errors, as it is the soul of 
their religion. I have nevertheless recognized two things in 
my efforts to combat it. First", that it is not properly the dream 
that they worship as the master of their life, but a certain one of 
the genii, they call Agatkonchona, who, they believe, speak to 
them in sleep and command them to obey implicitly their dreams. 
The principal one of these spirits is Taronhiaononagon, whom 
they recognize as a divinity and obey as the supreme master of 
their life ; and when they speak of a dream as divine they only 
mean that it is by means of it they know the will of God, and 
what is necessary for the preservation of their life ; and further- 
more that the actual doing of the things they had seen in a dream, 
contributes to promote their health and happiness. They also 
sometimes give the name of the master of their life to the object 
of their dream, as for example to the skin of a bear, or to simi- 
lar things which they have seen in their sleep ; and because they 
regard them as charms to which God has attached the good for- 
tune of a long life. Thus they take special care to preserve 
them with this view, and when they are sick cover themselves 
with them, or place them near their persons as a defence against 
the attacks of disease. 

The second thing I have recognized in combatting the obedi- 
ence they render to their dreams, is that they are not able to 
understand how the soul acts during sleep in thus representing 
to them objects distant, and absent, as if near and present. 
They persuade themselves that the soul quits the body during 
sleep, and that it goes of itself, in search of the things dreamed, 
and to the places where they see them, and it returns into the 



29 

body toward the end of night, when all dreams are dissipated. 
To refute errors so gross, I proposed to them three questions. 

First : I demanded of them, whether the body of the person 
while in the act of dreaming was dead or alive ? It is alive, 
they said. It is the soul then I replied that makes one live, 
and if it were absent from the body, the body would be dead, 
and so it cannot be true that the soul leaves the body during 
sleep. 

Second : Tell me, I said, is it with the eyes that we see the 
things which appear to us in our dreams; as for example an 
enemy who comes to attack me ; a friend whom I meet on the 
path ; a deer which I am pursuing in the chase.? It cannot be, 
with the eyes, they replied, that we see them, for during sleep 
our eyes are closed and covered with darkness, they see noth- 
ing. It is our soul then, I said, that causes us to see at the 
time, what we see m our dreams, and consequently it is as neces- 
sary that it should be present with us, and in our body while we 
sleep, as for our eyes to be in our head, in their ordinary place, 
when by means of them we see the objects which present them- 
selves during the day. 

My third question was this : If the soul jleaves the body dur- 
ing sleep, where does it go.'' Does it go unto the enemy's 
country.'' Does it go on the chase in the forest.'' What is it 
doing while absent .-* Have you ever found, on waking, the 
scalj) the soul i>ut into your hands, bringing it to you fro.m the 
war .'' Or the bear upon your mat, that the soul has killed for 
you while you were asleep .'* Often at the same moment I see 
myself in France, on the other side of the great water, and here 
among you. Is my soul at the same time here and in France ? 
They had no reply: to these questions and stood convicted of 
their errors. 

It is not so easy, however, to make them understand the phi- 
losophy of dreams, in which things that impress themselves upon 
the imagination are present to the mind in sleep, in the same 
manner in which the images of the objects we see represent 



30 

themselves to the senses. I have always endeavored to explain 
in as clear a manner as possible these things, by comparing the 
mind with itself, when it simply recalls by an act of memory dis- 
tant scenes, and when in a dream it only imagines what appears 
to be present. You know well I said, that during the day. our 
soul remembers what occurred some time ago, and in places 
very far off. Is it not true that even now it presents the coun- 
try of the Andestogues, Outaouaks, Quebec and Montreal, to 
those of you who have been there, as if you were there now ? 
Your soul has not left your body to go to any of these places, 
for you are still alive ; it has not passed the great river, nor 
made any journey. The same thing occurs in dreams during 
the night. Rut again I said to them why should the mere rep- 
resentations of objects which are in the mind while we are 
asleep, be the masters of our lives rather than the images of the 
same objects which are depicted in the same mind while awake.'' 
For this, which is called a memory during the day, is called a 
dream, if it occur in the night. 

I then asked them if children not yet born had not some one 
who was master of their life .'' They said yes. Now it is not 
possible, I replied, that this should be a dream, for as yet it is not 
possible for them to have a dream. In fact of what could they 
dream .'' Of knives, hatchets, swords, or the like things ? They 
have never seen any. It cannot be a dream that is the master 
of their life before birth, nor even a long time after they come 
into the world, since it is some years before they have dreams. 
It is necessary then that they should have some other master 
of their life, and another god than the dream, for all this while. 
But when they begin to dream, it cannot be that the one who 
was formerly the master of their life should cease to be such. 
None would know how to displace him, nor rob of this cpiality 
and this power that he exercised over this infant before he be- 
gan to dream. He continues then to be the same as before, 
and thus he is their master before their birth, and when as yet 
they have had no dreams. He is their master after their birth 



31 

and when they begin to dream. He is equally such in the time 
of their youth, and of their old age : in fact to their death, and 
even after their death. And know that this Master whose pow- 
er is immutable and eternal is the God whom we adore and 
who will recompense all of us according to our deeds. It is 
not the dream, which, as your own experience has often told 
you, only imposes upon you impious and unreasonable demands, 
and which has deceived you a hundred times in the course of 
your lives. 

These barbarians show that they are capable of listening to 
reason and of perceiving its light in all its purity ; for some of 
them, now that they are enlightened, declare that they were 
convinced of the truth of what I had said to them and have 
since renounced these vain superstitions. 

The ■inclinations of these people only prompt them to engage 
in the chase or in war. They form into parties of twenty, thir- 
ty, fifty, a hundred, sometimes two hundred, — rarely do they 
amount to a thousand in a single troop ; and these bands divide 
in pursuit the one of men, and the other of beasts. They make 
war more as robbers than as soldiers, and their expeditions are 
rather surprises than regular battles. Their chief glory is in re- 
turning accompanied by captives of men, women and children, 
or laden with the scalps of those whom they have slain in the 
fight. 

As for the rest, one can only say that there are no greater ob- 
stacles to the success of our missions than the victories they 
obtain over their enemies, which only renders them insolent; 
and that there is nothing more desirable for the advancement 
of Christianity in this country than the humiliation of their 
spirits, which breathe only blood and carnage; which glory in 
killing and burning their fellowmen and whose brutal disposi- 
tion is so directly opposed to the pure and gentle heart of Je- 
sus Christ. 

We have passed the last winter quite peaceably, and without 
the alarm into which, ordinarily, the incursions of the Andas- 



33 

togues who have been long enemies of this nation have occa- 
sioned us. But last Autumn they sent a messenger with three 
wampum belts to treat for peace. He had been until the month 
of March awaiting a reply in order to return home. But the 
Onondagas having made war with the Andastogues this last 
winter, and having taken from them eight or nine prisoners, 
presented two of them to the inhabitants of Cayuga with forty 
belts of wampum to induce them to continue the war against 
the common enemy. Immediately after this, they broke the 
head of the unfortunate messenger whom they had detained for 
five or six months, and who believed himself to be on the eve 
of his departure. His body was buried after his death, and a 
nephew of his, who had accompanied him shared the same fate 
at the hands of tliese savages, who care but little for the rights 
of their fellow men, and who keep faith no further than it serves 
their own interests. We can truly say that we are among them 
as perpetual victims, since there is no day in which we are not 
in danger of being massacred. But this also is our greatest joy, 
and the spring of our purest consolation. 

NO. VI. 

In the Relations for 1670-1, we find an interesting account of 
the conversion and baptism of Saonchiogwan, the chief of the 
Cayugas, who stood next to Garacontie, of the Onondagas, in 
esteem and influence among the Iroquois. The event took 
place in Quebec and was attended with marked solemnities. 
In the sprmg of 167 1, a Seneca embassy was sent to Quebec, 
headed by Saonchiogwan, to restore some Pottawatamies, whom 
the braves of that canton had surprised in violation of peace. 
The Relations proceed to say that as soon as Saonchiogwan ar- 
rived at Quebec, he labored incessantly to acquit himself of the 
commission with which )he was charged by the Senecas. He 
held a council with the (Governor, and placed in his hands the 
eight captives, with earnest protestations on the part of the 



33 

Senecas of submission and ol)edience to all his orders. The 
Governor entertained him and his suite, and all things being 
concluded with testimonials of satisfaction on both sides, the 
Chief concentrated all his energies upon the important matter 
of his salvation, to the exclusion of every other subject. He 
had an earnest conference with Father Chaumonot then in 
charge of the Huron Mission. It was not necessary to devote 
much time for his instruction and enlightenment in the knowl- 
edge of our holy mysteries. He had been well informed con- 
cerning them for more than fifteen years, even from our first 
arrival in their country, when it was his good fortune to be 
present in the distinguished council of the Five Nations at On- 
ondaga, which Father Chaumonot addressed, for two entire 
hours, in explanation of the principal articles of our faith. This 
Father was listened to with a silent and wrapt attention, that 
was very noticeable, particularly in the countenance and eyes 
of our Catechumen. The Chiefs of these nations, each in his 
turn, repeated, according to their custom, the discourse of the 
Father, but he did this more eloquently than all the others. 
Beside he has had the advantage of having been the host of 
Fathers Rene Menard and Stephen de Carheil, who formed and 
nurtured in his nation the church of St. Joseph. He had 
the good fortune to share in all the instructions, general and per- 
sonal, of these Apostolic men. He had conversed familiarly 
with them, and been a witness, day and night, of their labors, 
cares and indefatigable zeal. He had seen the marvelous con- 
versions among his compatriots and of those in his own neigh- 
borhood, who had embraced the faith and made a public pro- 
fession of the same. But all these favors of heaven only serv- 
ed at the time to convince him of the vanity of their supersti- 
tious customs, and of the superiority of our holy religion, with- 
out making any efficacious impression on his heart, or induc- 
ing him to abandon the vices common to savage life. Besides, 
the spirit he manifested, which appeared to us crafty, politic, 
adroit and complaisant, compelled us to wait upon divine mer- 



34 

cy, for a more favorable moment to open to him the door of 
salvation in holy baptism. 

In fine, this moment, so much desired, seemed to hdve come 
with this occasion. He opened his heart to Father Chaumo- 
not, declaring in such satisfactory terms his resolution to be a 
Christian, and to renounce forever all the customs of his coun- 
try not in conformity with the holy precepts of the Gospel, that 
the Father was fully persuaded that he spoke from his heart. 
Likewise our Lord Bishop, thoroughly informed of the whole 
case, deemed it unnecessary to withhold any longer the grace 
of baptism. He was pleased, therefore, to confer with his own 
hand this sacrament ; and M. Talon, the Intendant, gave him 
the name of Louis. The ceremony was attended with all pos- 
sible solemnity, and concluded with a magnificent feast which 
the Intendant caused to be prepared in behalf of the new con- 
vert, allowing him the liberty to invite all whom he desired. 
The Iroquois, Algonquins and Hurons, were present in large 
numbers; and yet so bountiful was the provision, that after hav- 
ing partaken abundantly, they carried away enough to feast 
those who remained to guard the cabins. 

The following letter from Father de Carheil is the last from 
him given in the Relations. He was obliged to relinquish his la- 
bors with this mission for a year, for the recovery of his health, 
during which time his place was supplied by Father Raffeix of 
the Seneca Mission. He returned however, at the end of the year 
1672, and continued with the mission until 1684, but as the Re- 
lations close with the former date, we shall be unable, after the 
present letter, to follow him, as for several previous years, in 
the detail of his work. He writes of the condition of the Mis- 
sion of St. Joseph at Cayuga for 167 1, as follows : 

The recent progress of Christianity, in the advancement of 
the faith and the salvation of souls, being all the consolation 
your Reverence expects each year from our missions, I know 
not how to give you greater joy than to inform you of the 
growth of this church, in the number of souls regenerated in 



35 

in the waters of baptism or rendered eternally happy by a saint- 
ly death. If the salvation of a single soul is a source of great- 
er consolation than all the most illustrious achievements of 
earth, I trust that sixty-two to whom I have given the life of 
grace, and thirty-two who have gone to live in glory, will give 
this abundant joy. The greater part of those who died after 
baptism were children, whose age allows of no doubt concern- 
ing their happiness. The others were adulrs, whose disposition 
leads me to believe that they obtained by their voluntary sub- 
mission to grace, that which these little innocents received as 
the sole effect of the sacrament. 

Without stopping to treat of each particular case, the one that 
has appeared to me the clearest, is that of a young woman of 
about twenty-five years of age. She was of an admirable tem- 
per, and of such sweetness of disposition, so entirely devoid of 
the savage, that she appeared more like one nurtured in France 
than in a country of barbarians. Before her baptism, she was 
frequent at prayers, and often leading at her side her little 
daughter four or five years of age. This, doubtless, had its in- 
fluence in disposing her the more readily to receive the grace 
of baptism. While still under the impression of Christian truth, 
which little by little, found its way into her mind, she fell sick, 
and in this state I found her on my round of visits through the 
bourg. She begged me to have pity on her, and give her some 
medicine that would cure her. I gave her the medicine, and 
improved the opportunity to instruct her in all our mysteries, 
and more especially of the necessity of baptism. She appeared 
to listen with j)leasure to what I said of the nature and value 
of the sacrament. She would readily have allowed me to put a 
little water on her head, if by that means she might be eternal- 
ly happy ; and had 1 demanded nothing besides, would have 
been quite disposed to receive l)aptism. But, when I added 
that the simple application of water was not sufficient to obtain 
for us eternal happiness or to exempt us from endless pains ; 
that it was necessary, besides, to know the sins one had com- 



36 

mitted; to have a true sense of sorrow on account of them, and 
firmly resolve never to repeat them — it was then that her heart, 
which before had hope, felt opposition and resistance. She 
drew a deep sigh, cast a glance of her eye toward me, turned 
away and hid her face, thus compelling me to say no more than 
she was willing to hear. At this moment, a woman of her cab- 
in having entered to oppose my farther instructions, I was con- 
strained to retire. • 

Three days passed away before she would allow me to visit 
her for this purpose. In the meanwhile her malady increased, 
and excited in me the earnestness necessary to her salvation, 
which at length had its effect. As all these repulses came from 
the opposition of her will to an enlightened conscience, the fre- 
quent visits I made her, and the desire 1 manifested for her 
eternal welfare, together with the near approach of death soft- 
ened her heart and changed its opposition into love. 

One morning as I was visiting her for the purpose of giving 
some further remedies, with the ordinary signs of compassion 
for her, which could avail but little, as her end was near, she 
begged me to give her all the comfort within my power. This 
confidence on her part gave me the opportunity to speak to her 
again of baptism. I found that all her opposition had vanished ; 
and whatever difficulty she had experienced in cherishing sor- 
row for sin, and a hatred for the things to which she was at_ 
tached by inclination and habit, God had permitted it, only to 
dispose her to exercise her repentance with the greater efficacy 
and sincerity, and assurance of her salvation. Indeed, when I 
came to speak to her the second time of the necessity that she 
should abhor her sins which I indicated, and asked her if she 
did not detest them, as God would have her, to the end that 
they might be washed away in baptism, I saw that her whole 
demeanor was changed, and the pain I felt on her first refusal 
to repent was recom;)ensed by the greater joy. She joined 
her heart and tongue to this word of penitence ; she pronounc- 
ed it ; she repeated it lo herself many times with an inexpressi- 



a? 

ble tenderness which penetrated the depths of my soul, and all 
that I can say is, that one must have heard it to understand it. 
After this I no longer doubted that she was of the number of 
the elect. 

I baptized her after a suitable prayer, in which she followed 
me, including all the acts appropriate to prepare her for death. 
When she saw that I drew near to baptize her, she presented her 
head to receive the water with such a subdued expression of 
countenance, that the work of grace was visibly manifest. I re- 
mained after baptism no longer than was needful to give her 
the assurance of eternal felicity, and have her repeat the pray- 
ers; and shortly after I had retired, she rendered her soul to 
Him who had sanctified it. 

— The next number will contain the narrative of Father Raf- 
feix, who occupied the mission at Cayuga for a year during the 
absence of Father de Carheil, and, with some additional items 
in its history will close this series of articles. 

. NO. VII. 

The present number, which concludes this series, contains 
the letter of Father Peter Raffeix, in whose charge the Mission 
of St. Joseph at Cayuga was placed, during the absence of Fa- 
ther de Carheil, for a year, on account of his health. Raffeix 
was chaplain of the French Expedition against the Mohawks 
in 1665, and, at the time of his taking the Cayuga Mission, was 
laboring among the Senecas, with whom he resumed his work, on 
the return of de Carheil, and continued among them until 1680. 
His familiarity with the several cantons of the Iroquois, gives 
interest to the comparison he here makes between the Cayugas, 
and the other four nations of the confederacy. 

The letter bears date June 24th, 1672, and is translated from 
Chapter vi, Part I, of the Relations^ 167 1-2 ; 

Cayuga is the most beautiful country I have seen in America. 
It is situated in latitude 42^, and the needle dips scarcely more 



38 

than ten degrees. It lies between two lakes, and is no more 
than four leagues wide, with almost continuous plains, bordered 
by fine forests. 

Agnie (Mohawk) is a valley very contracted; for the most 
part stony, and always covered with fogs ; the hills that enclose 
it appear to me very bad land. 

Oneida and Onondaga appear too rough and little adapted 
to the chase, as well as Seneca. More than a thousand deer 
are killed every year in the neighborhood of Cayuga. 

Fishing for both the salmon and the eel, and for other sorts 
of fish, is as abundant as at Onondaga. Four leagues distant 
from here, on the brink of the river (Seneca), I have seen, with- 
in a small space, eight or ten fine salt fountains. It is there 
that numbers of nets are spread for pigeons, and from seven to 
eight hundred are often caught at a single stroke of the net. 
Lake Tiohero, adjacent to the village, is fourteen leagues long 
by one or two wide. It abounds with swan and geese through 
the winter; and in the spring, nothing is seen but continual 
clouds of all sorts of game. The river Ochouegen (Oswego) 
which rises in this lake soon branches into several channels, 
surrounding prairies, with here and there fine and attractive bays 
of sufficient extent for the preservation of hunting. 

I find the people of Cayuga more tractable and less fierce 
than the Onondagas or Oneidas; and had God humiliated them, 
as have been the Mohawks, I think that the Faith would have 
been more readily established among them than with any other 
of the nations of the Iroquois. I'hey count more than three 
hundred warriors and a prodigious swarm of little children. 

As to the spiritual, and that which appertains to the Mission, 
I hardly know what to say. God having withdrawn from it, 
first Father Menard at the commencement of his successful la- 
bors, and since then, for nearly a year, Father de Carheil, after 
he had mastered the the language, and favorably disposed the 
hearts of these barbarians toward their salvation, I cannot think 
that the hour of their conversion has yet arrived. In order to 



39 

remove a prejudice to Christianity, created among our catech- 
umens and neophytes, by some slaves, captives from the Neuter 
Nation, and some renegade Hurons, I have introduced the 
chant of the Church with an arrangement of the several prayers 
and hymns, in their language, pertaining to the mysteries of our 
faith. It was on the first day of the year that we presented for 
a New Year's offering to our Lord, songs of praise, which we 
have since continued with profit, and much to the satisfaction 
of our savages. 

I am occupied the most of each day in visiting the sick, to 
give them the proper instruction, in osder that they may not 
die without receiving baptism. God did not permit me to suc- 
ceed with the first one whom I visited on my arrival here, and 
who died soon after. I went to see him many times and com- 
menced with the necessary course of instruction. But his moth- 
er would not permit it. One day, as I remained with the sick 
person a longer time than suited her mind, she seized a stick to 
drive me out, and her daughter, at the same time, threw a large 
stone, which, however, failed to hit me. 1 seized every oppor- 
tunity to make an impression. I spoke in different interviews 
to this wretched mother, beseeching her to have pity on her 
son. But she remained inflexible to the last. Thus this poor 
young man died without l)aptism, at least the actual adminis- 
tration. It seems as if the curse of God rested upon this cabin 
— the same in which Father de Carheil had been treated with 
still greater indignity than myself, and for a like reason.* 

Some time after this affliction, which greatly grieved me, it 
pleased God to console me by the conversion of a prisoner of 
war, a young man from twenty to twenty-two years of age. I 
have never found a savage more docile. They chopped off the 
half of one hand, and tore out his finger nails, while a crowd of 
people surrounded him on all sides, and demanded that he 
should sing to them. In the intervals in which they allowed 
him to take breath, I seized the occasion to instruct him. It 

♦Letter of de Carheil in No. Ill of this series. 



40 

appeared in the midst of all this torture, that he retained the 
presence of mind to appreciate the Christian truth that I taught 
him. At last, I was so well satisfied that I baptized him. This 
gave him such joy that he publicly thanked me, even singing of 
the love I had shown him. 

I count thirty, both children and adults, to whom God has 
given the same grace, since the departure of Father de Carheil. 
I trust that this troop of little innocents will move God at last, 
by the prayers they make to him, to hasten the time for the 
conversion of these barbarians, which as yet does not seem to 
be near. To believe that an entire nation is to be converted 
at once, and to expect to make Christians by the hundreds and 
thousands in this country, is to deceive one's self. Canada is 
not a land of flowers ; to find one, you must walk far among 
brambles and thorns. Persons of exalted virtue find here 
enough to call out their zeal. The less enthusiastic, like my- 
self, are happy in finding themselves compelled to suffer much, 
to be without consolation save in God alone, and to labor in- 
< essantly for personal sanctification. I sincerely beg your Rev- 
erence, to retain me in this blessed service all my life, and to be 
assured that this is the greatest favor that can be conferred up- 
on me. I will add a word (says the Father) to give you some 
account of our petty wars. 

The day of Ascension, twenty Senecas and forty of our young 
braves, went from this bourg to make an attack upon the An- 
dastes, whose country is four day's journey from here. The 
Senecas, who formed a band by themselves, the others having 
previously gone by water, were attacked by a party of sixty 
young Andastes, from fifteen to sixteen years of age, and put to 
flight with a loss of two of their men — one killed on the spot and 
the other carried away prisoner. The youthful victors, learn- 
ing that the band of the Cayugas had gone by water, immedi- 
ately took to their canoes in hot pursuit, and overtaking them 
beat them in the fight. Eight of the Cayugas were slain in their 
canoes, and fifteen or sixteen wounded by arrows and knives, 



41 

or half killed by strokes of the hatchet. The field of battle was 
left with the Andastes, with a loss, it is said, of fifteen or six- 
teen of their number. May God preserve the Andastes who 
have barely three hundred men of war ! May He favor their 
arms to humble the Iroquois, and preserve to us the peace of 
our missions ! 

After this letter was written, Father de Carheil returned with 
restored health to the mission. The record is that "finding hu- 
man skill unavailing, he made a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. 
Anne, and obtained deliverance from the nervous disorder 
which afflicted him." With the year of his return to Cayuga, 
1672, the Relations covering a period of nearly forty consecu- 
tive years, are concluded; and whatever has been gleaned of the 
subsequent history of this and the other Jesuit missions among 
the Iroquois, is mainly from the manuscript relations at Quebec 
or at Rome. We learn from Shea, the historian of American 
Cathlic Missions, who has carefully studied this unpublished col- 
lection, that on his return toCayuga, de Carheil found prejudice 
still deeply rooted in the popular mind, and calumnies of every^ 
kind wide spread against the faith. Some consoling conver- 
sions however, occurred ; and among others that of a young; 
chief gladdened his heart. His only stay was the Chieftan: 
Saonchiogwan who seconded all his efforts. 

The mission continued in this way for several years, unmark- 
ed by any striking event, the obstinate and haughty spirit of 
the people remaining the same as ever, till about 1684, when 
the faithful missionary was plundered of everything by a chief 
named Horchouasse, and driven from the country by Oreouate 
and Sarennoa, the two head chief, at the time, of the canton. 
This was due in good part to English intrigue. 

In 1683, Col. Thomas Dongan, governor of New York, had 
so far succeeded in destroying the influence of the French with 
the Iroquois, that, though himself a Catholic, he directed all 
his effort to expel the Canadian missionaries ; and to inspire the 
Indians with greater confidence, he promised to send them 



42 

English Jesuits and build them churches in their cantons; and 
as the result the Oneida and Seneca missions were abandoned 
a year before the expulsion of de Carheil from Cayuga. 

In 1701, when a separate peace was concluded between the 
Five Nations and Canada, several of the old Iroquois mission- 
aries started from Quebec to raise their fallen altars on the 
former ground of their labors and sacrifices. But in the con- 
tinued struggle of the English with the French for the dominant 
influence, little was accomplished, when by the treaty of Utrecht, 
Louis XIV acknowledged the right of England to the whole 
territory occupied by the Five Nations, and thus completely 
closed the cantons against the missionaries of France. 



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